Item 5 this afternoon is a debate on the Children, Young People, and Education Committee’s report, 'Pupil absence'. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Jayne Bryant.

Motion NDM8195 Jayne Bryant

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the report of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, ‘Pupil absence’, which was laid in the Table Office on 14 November 2022.

Motion moved.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. I'm very pleased to open this debate on the Children, Young People, and Education Committee’s report on pupil absence. We undertook a short, focused inquiry last summer to try to understand the impact of the pandemic on school attendance.

We knew that, prior to the pandemic, there had been a strong focus, both at school and national levels, to tackle school absence. We wanted to build on the Welsh Government-commissioned report on school absence, done by Meilyr Rowlands. Our findings very much chimed with the findings of his report, and we hope they're very helpful to Welsh Government.

I'd like to thank my fellow committee members for their diligence in undertaking this work, as well as those who gave oral and written evidence. In particular, I'd like to thank those families and young people who came to our focus groups to discuss their experiences. Our strategic plan places a huge emphasis on the importance of hearing directly from children and young people, and we remain committed to hearing and placing these voices at the forefront. Please be assured your voices really helped to shape our work. I'd also like to thank the Minister for his positive engagement with our work on this issue.

We made seven recommendations in total, all of which were accepted or accepted in principle. We know the Welsh Government are currently reviewing their attendance guidance, and we're glad to see the Minister commit to this review, encompassing the exclusions and behaviour guidance, as these issues are so closely linked. We also welcome the commitment that the revised guidance will be child-centric and underpinned by trauma-informed practice and evidence of what actually works.

We heard very clear evidence that everybody has a role to play in promoting and supporting sustained attendance. Therefore, it is good to hear from the Minister that this guidance will set out the roles that all partners can play, going beyond just the school staff, but also encompassing local authorities, governors and, of course, parents and carers.

During the pandemic, the type of attendance data that was collected and published changed, which makes it difficult to compare the data on attendance available pre pandemic and the data that’s available now. But the broad trends indicate that attendance has decreased since the pandemic-related school closures. When we published the report, the average attendance for the current academic year was 91.4 per cent. As of the most recent Welsh Government data, published this morning, the average attendance for this academic year had declined to 89.3 per cent. The data also shows that the attendance rate is lower for those learners who are eligible for free school meals than those learners who are not.

We heard anecdotal evidence that the cost-of-living crisis was creating an additional barrier to children and young people attending school. While this was anecdotal, it builds on long-standing concerns about the impact of the cost of the school day and the barriers it can create. It was also anecdotal evidence that all stakeholders seemed to agree with. And we're very clear that no child should be missing out on school because their family cannot afford for them to attend. This is baking in already existing disadvantages, and fundamentally unfair.

We therefore made recommendation 2, which called for an urgent study into how the current cost-of-living crisis is impacting on school attendance. We were concerned that, because this evidence is currently anecdotal, it's making it more difficult to create effective solutions and policy interventions. We called for this to be done within two months of the Welsh Government’s response to the report, and for it to be supported by an action plan.

In responding to this recommendation, the Welsh Government said it was challenging to meet the timescale outlined. They said that they are in informal discussions with a local authority about a research proposal, which would take an in-depth look at attendance in secondary schools, with a focus on which approaches and interventions have the most impact on lower-income families. Now, while this sounds like a promising piece of work, it does not meet the ambition of our recommendation. We set a really challenging timescale for this recommendation because we felt the urgent need to understand how the current crisis is affecting school attendance right now and to identify what actions can be taken quickly to address that issue. We're concerned that, if children and young people start missing school because they can’t afford to attend, this will make it more difficult to re-engage them in schooling the longer they are absent.

We also note that this research proposal would only be looking at secondary school attendance. It's also unclear if this proposal would look at the picture across Wales. Perhaps the Minister can outline what work he plans to do to look at the evidence in primary settings. And, Minister, can you also confirm if the research proposal would cover all of Wales, and perhaps, if you're unable to support the research proposal cited in the Welsh Government's response, what work could take its place?

Closely linked to the cost-of-living issues was recommendation 3, on learner travel. Both from our work on this committee but also as individual Members—which we did debate yesterday as well in the budget debate—we're acutely aware of the barriers that some children and young people face in accessing appropriate and affordable travel to school. We called for a pupil-first approach to learner travel decisions, where the needs of the individual pupil are the most important factor, and not cost. We acknowledge that this is a big ask of local authorities in difficult financial times, so we called on the Welsh Government to ensure local authorities have sufficient funding to deliver on this approach. We also called for the current review to be radical in looking for innovative solutions to this long-standing issue. Children’s attendance at school should not be hindered because they do not have affordable or safe transport options.

In responding, the Minister outlines the current review and the forthcoming changes to bus service delivery. However, we are concerned that, as with the previous recommendation, this does not reflect the urgent need to tackle this issue in the here and now. So, when will the review of the Learner Travel Measure (Wales) 2008 be completed, and when can we expect to see the actions from the review being implemented?

Finally, I'd like to seek some more clarity from the Minister on the response to recommendation 1, which called for a national campaign focusing on the positive impacts of regular school attendance. We believe that this should be delivered in conjunction with more tailored local campaigns at local authority and school level, which would complement a national campaign. In responding to this recommendation, the Minister said that Welsh Government will be increasing communications to emphasise the importance of going to school. Please can he provide us with more detail on what format these communications will take, and will it be the national campaign that the committee wants to see?

So, in closing, Deputy Llywydd, I would like to thank all those who contributed to our inquiry once again, including those who provided written and oral evidence, my fellow committee members, and the Minister and his officials for engaging positively with our work. I look forward to hearing what colleagues and the Minister have to say. Diolch.

I'd like to start off by giving thanks to our excellent Chair, Jayne Bryant, and also my fellow committee members, of course, and the clerks, staff and people who gave evidence and who made this vital report a reality—and, of course, the Minister for his co-operation as well. It is critical that we address soaring pupil absence, the problem having been exacerbated, as we’ve already heard, by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. The report, I believe, is a thorough one and I’d like to focus on just a few key issues from it today.

We have seen that additional learning needs pupils often do not get the right, timely support, which results in persistent school absence. The National Autistic Society Cymru found that 43 per cent of autistic students were persistently absent, which is a worrying statistic. We also see that students in poverty, as has already been said, make up a high proportion of those absent from school, and this was very, very clear throughout the report.

The annual child and family poverty survey 2021 found that 94 per cent of practitioners in Wales said that poverty had an impact on a child’s school experience, which of course has now been exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic. Current trends are a cause for alarm, and we need to ensure that we make it as easy as possible for students to attend school, and that we are as supportive as possible to individual learners for their individual needs, to ensure that they don’t miss out on the education that they all deserve.

It’s clear from the recommendations that we need a multi-pronged approach to ensure that we stop this worrying trend. Recommendation 3 of the report says that Welsh Government should ensure that local authorities have sufficient funding, as our Chair has already outlined, to ensure that children and young people have that access to appropriate school transport options to get them to school safely. This is absolutely vital, particularly when local authority budgets are so tight in the current climate.

However, the Welsh Government’s approach is only to accept this in principle, and bundle it in with the ‘One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket’ White Paper, which in my view diminishes the importance of this issue and only delays real action being taken. As I said in committee—and I see these issues in my own region, as we all do, far too regularly—we need this pupil-first approach that has been put forward by the committee. It needs wholesale reform, and not just tweaks.

But we must remember that there are children now who need help with school transport, and we cannot wait for the White Paper to turn into implementation years down the line. We need to see immediate action in expanding the offer of school transport, whilst reducing the cost for parents, as, for now, many can’t afford school transport, and they can’t afford to drive their children to school either. This creates a situation of despair for parents, and of course affects the learners and affects the level of absence that we are seeing. I completely agree with Jayne Bryant that this should not be a barrier to learning in this day and age.

Recommendation 4 looks to address the students who are most likely to absent, and why. As we know from the report, it can vary from ALN needs to mental health issues, and mental health issues that are not being addressed adequately and supporting learners to be able to stay in school. Whilst I'm pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation, and that they'll consider absence and exclusion data to inform the support of the well-being of learners, it is essential that, where the support is needed, it’s urgently delivered on the ground to where it is needed. The data is meaningless without the proper support following it, and I’m disappointed that Welsh Government have committed to this without accepting the recommendation.

We also need to know how the Welsh Government will monitor the delivery and its success or failure. I’d also like the Minister to address how the Welsh Government will ensure that this generation of students are able to access school transport, not just focus on the next generation, and explain how he’s ensuring that home-schoolers aren’t being conflated and bundled in with school absence, as it’s crucial we ensure this medium of education is kept open and untarnished. But it is important that Welsh Government—. We do need to understand why there has been such a significant rise in home schooling since the pandemic began.

The report before us highlights the urgency in addressing this, as our Chair has outlined, so I’d like to hear from the Minister how he is working now with local authorities and school leaders to ensure that we reverse this worrying trend of pupil absence. Yes, it’s come down slightly, but the figures are still far too high. Thank you.

I too would like to thank the Chair of the committee and my fellow Members, the clerks and everyone who contributed, as well as the Minister. This was a very important inquiry.

As has already been outlined, we are all aware of the importance of attendance in terms of pupils’ development at school, not just in terms of their academic attainment, but their social, cognitive and emotional development. But the fact is, across Wales, too many learners are missing out on important opportunities due to absence, and what we as a committee were eager to understand  better was why this was the case.

As mentioned previously, this was a problem before COVID, but certainly the situation has deteriorated since then. And if the situation doesn’t improve soon, then a number of learners will have missed out on a whole host of opportunities, which will then have an impact on them for decades to come. That is why this report is so vitally important.

I welcome specifically the Government’s response to the second recommendation, and the agreement to commission research to understand better the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on pupils’ ability to attend school. Certainly the children’s commissioner was clear about the link between absence and poverty, and with child poverty increasing here in Wales, we must gain a better understanding of why this is happening and what we can do to ensure the very best start for every learner who attends school.

One matter raised with us as a committee, which has been raised already today—and it's been raised with me a number of times as a regional Member for South Wales Central—is the barriers related to transport costs, and that is the thrust of the committee’s third recommendation. I am pleased to see that the Minister has accepted this recommendation in principle, but again, it is a cause for concern for me that it is taking so long to resolve this issue.

I have raised several times with the Minister and the Deputy Minister for Climate Change a case in my constituency at Llanishen High School, which has been raised by Ruben Kelman, Member of the Welsh Youth Parliament. There is clear evidence from the school that the cost of bus travel is preventing some pupils from attending the school regularly. Despite this, the situation remains unresolved. How many more young people are affected like this? And why haven't councils such as Cardiff Council responded immediately to provide a solution to these situations, when we receive evidence that children can't afford to attend school?

I’d also like to focus on one other key area that came to light during our inquiry, and that was staffing capacity, or rather lack of, and how it is one of the biggest barriers to tackling pupil absence. As we heard, it is a problem that was made worse because of COVID-19 related staff absences, and difficulties in securing supply staff to cover, but there are other challenges too, linked to the draft budget, which we discussed yesterday. We’ve already been warned by teaching unions that school budgets are going to be under strain, with heads warning that they will have to look at cutting back on teachers and teaching assistants, as well as additional support for pupils and their families.

However, our report concludes that there are already significant concerns about staffing capacity and resilience to support pupil attendance. Some of this was specifically in reference to supporting blended and flexible learning as well. Ultimately, there are specific groups of children and young people who face additional barriers to attending school, many of which they do not have control over. Blended learning, an innovation developed during the pandemic, may provide an effective option to help these groups of learners maintain attendance. A return to normal simply isn’t going to work in this situation, and being able to use these innovative practices may help support those learners.

Finally, I welcome the Minister’s acceptance of the need to improve data collection as well as the publication and analysis of pupil absence data. The need for disaggregated data is crucial in identifying trends of absence for particular groups of learners. We need to send a clear message to all that, for pupils who attend school, attendance isn't optional, and if there are barriers that are affecting attendance, especially costs, then we need to urgently act. Education is a right and no child or young person should be losing even a day of school because their families can't afford for them to attend.

I very much look forward to seeing the recommendations being implemented, and once again ask all who can help turn these into reality to urgently put them into action. Every day lost in school by a learner is a day that widens the attainment gap. We need to act now.

I'd like to start by offering my thanks to the committee, its clerking team and the witnesses for what I think is a very robust piece of work. For my contribution, I'll be focusing on a couple of the key recommendations.

Firstly, recommendation 1 around promoting the importance of school attendance. We all know that it's important that children and young people attend school, and it's key that we get that positive message out there, especially after all the disruption and uncertainty that has been experienced over the past few years. I welcome the response from Welsh Government, saying that it will increase communications to parents and carers, both to address concerns and emphasise that positive rhetoric on the importance of going to school. I'm pleased at the mention of family engagement officers within the Minister's response, and their role in creating strong partnerships and offering bespoke support. I know these officers are doing really great work in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and I just want to pay tribute to the significant impact that they have.

Secondly, I want to touch on recommendation 3 regarding learner travel. I endorse the committee's call for a learner-centred approach. Perhaps in this context it's worth briefly paying tribute to RCT council's offer for free transport. This applies if a child in primary school lives 1.5 miles from their nearest suitable provision, or 2 miles if attending secondary school. So, RCT already goes beyond what is set out in the Measure, focusing on the individual and trying to remove barriers to attending school.

I understand the Welsh Government's comments around active travel as being important, but this will not be suitable for all children and also it would not be the choice for all parents and guardians. The comment in the Welsh Government's response that the proposed bus Bill offers a chance to also look again at school transport is a very important commitment. I hope this consideration will include a pilot study around free bus travel for children and young people, although I appreciate that it's something that the Minister might not be able to give today. There is lots to support this, and breaking down any barriers to attend school is, for me, a key factor. I appreciate the work Welsh Government already does to make transport more affordable for children and young people, but the Bill is a perfect chance to find out if taking this next step is feasible and desirable. That's a call that I know I and others have made before, but it is also one that both the previous Children's Commissioner for Wales and the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales have also supported.

Thirdly, recommendations 4 and 7, and these relate to the use of data and how it triggers interventions and offers a call for greater consistency. I'm really pleased by the responsive comments from the Minister in relation to these. From my own experience of holding a pastoral role in a secondary school, I know how important it is to track and monitor attendance, so that any issues can be picked up, resolved by support with early interventions, and thereby preventing many problems from spiralling. Attendance data is perhaps the most valuable tool that schools have to identify pupils in need of support for things like mental health, and I completely agree with the quote from Professor Ann John in the report, that 'what gets counted matters'. And I endorse the children's commissioner's view of persistent absence as a red flag, suggestive of both symptom and cause, and I welcome the commitment to a consistent approach in any revised framework. I really would like to see a gold standard embedded across Wales.

Finally, recommendation 5 on publishing information on the links between attainment and absence. I do have sympathy with this, but I feel it must be approached in a sensible way so that lessons are learned from previous approaches. Anecdotally, based on my own experiences, I'm thinking of previous systems where just a 4 per cent margin on attendance could see schools categorised at the extreme ends of the scale as either green or red. Sometimes the raw data doesn't quite tell the whole story, and I note the evidence given by NASUWT Cymru to the committee that while schools have a role to play, it is relative to the role that other organisations must play.

I'd like to close by thanking the committee again for this piece of work. It's a really important subject to ensure that our children and young people get the best start, and problems are identified. But I'd also like to thank the Minister for his positive response, and I look forward to following the next steps as this work is taken forward.

Can I join Vikki Howells and other colleagues by commending the committee on a really thorough piece of work, I think, into what is a very ingrained problem and one that was definitely here before COVID-19? But what's clear from the committee report is the added impact of COVID and lockdowns on pupil absence. So, it's deeply concerning to see evidence that shows that the mental health of children and young people has been severely affected by the pandemic, to the point that they are not attending school.

I see that the Minister is looking at a communication strategy to encourage children and young people back into school, and that this messaging could be localised. So, I'd be interested to see what updates the Minister has on this, and whether he's taken on board the committee's point that there needs to be a baseline for children across Wales to be supported back into school, so there won't be detrimental differences in local responses.

It's also notable from the Minister's reply to the committee that he's placing an emphasis on community-focused schools and family engagement officers to respond to the issue. So, I'm keen to know how the Minister is intending to use them, and what their role will be in spreading this particular message. 

Clearly, there are many, many factors at play when it comes to pupil absence, from those with additional learning needs not getting the right support to the impact of poverty, to being a young carer, which the Minister himself said was a hidden issue. It's a complex problem, and schools, local authorities and families need to have all of the tools available at their disposal to support children back into school. Education should be a right and not an added benefit. 

It should also be of no surprise to any of us in the Chamber today that the impact of absenteeism on pupil learning is devastating. We're already the country with the highest rate of school days lost during the pandemic in the UK, and, sadly, it looks like pupils are set to miss out on even more due to industrial action, which is entirely within the Welsh Government's gift to prevent. However, as the committee report shows, it's not just attainment and employability that are affected, it's socialisation, building friendships and access to mental health support at school. Without these basic interactions, a lack of schooling will lead to poor behaviour and, later on, as ASCL Cymru noted to the committee, criminal or anti-social behaviour even within the community, as well as the potential for increased youth violence.

I'm really curious about the statement the Minister made last May about Welsh Government action on pupil absence, which included national communication to families about the importance of attending school; nearly £4 million in funding for the family engagement officers and the reintroduction of fixed-penalty notices as a last resort. However, not only does it look like the Minister rowed back on the use of fixed-penalty notices by saying that they're being considered as part of a broader review of an all-Wales attendance framework, but the guidance he's been giving to local authorities when reintroducing them has been ambiguous, and I quote, 'has weakened the position of local authority interventions'. How can local authorities use those powers at their disposal without clear guidance on when they're able to intervene? 

It's very interesting to see as well in the part of the world that we both represent, Minister, Neath Port Talbot has the highest average rates of unauthorised absences in the academic year to date, running at over 5 per cent, nearly double the Welsh average and almost triple the rates in Powys and Monmouthshire. Neath Port Talbot also has the highest average percentage of sessions of absence, running at over 12 per cent in the 2022-23 academic year so far. Therefore, I want to know what urgent action the Minister is taking to ensure local authorities, particularly Neath Port Talbot, are able to take the necessary action to stop entrenched and persistent absenteeism, which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic.

And finally, I was struck by a statistic outlined recently by Bridgend County Borough Council that said that even with a 90 per cent attendance rate over an academic year, a pupil would miss out on 100 lessons—100 lessons. That's 100 lessons of maths, English, Welsh, science, physical education and so on over a single year. We should be pushing really hard on this. Of course, lockdowns have affected our children's education severely, and we can't afford to have them further impacted after COVID restrictions have now ended. If we do continue down this road, then we're facing a potential lost generation, and the fault will have been ours. Diolch. 

Thank you very much indeed for your interesting report on a very important subject. I think too often in the past the primary purpose of the school system was to maximise the numbers of people who achieved five A to Cs, including English and Maths. I think it's called the capped score in the jargon. But this takes no account of the complexity and challenge of pupils' lives and their ability to learn. Many of you have already mentioned some of these and you've captured them in your report. I think, in particular, it's important to think about parental influence and families with complex and multiple needs.

Today, I had the privilege to meet a young man who's now in year 13, but he started his school career aged 6 as an asylum seeker who spoke absolutely no English and had ADHD. Had he not had some really good support through his school life, I'm sure that he might well have misbehaved and got himself excluded. In addition, his mother was a teacher, so she was able to give him the sort of support to follow the curriculum in primary school that he was struggling to understand and absorb. Imagine if that child's parent had not been a teacher, didn't understand how you support young people's learning—you can see how that person could have fallen behind in their learning. 

The National Autistic Society evidence lists, I think, nine reasons why young people who are autistic would struggle with learning. But I would suggest that that is something that all children could struggle with, not necessarily on the scale that autistic people have. If people are not reflective of the impact of their behaviour on others, then it can lead to terrible consequences. My own granddaughter had her first detention yesterday, because she and five other six-year-olds had been unkind. One of them had written an unkind note to another child in the class, which happily the primary school was able to pick up on, and I hope that will enable them to see the consequences of unkind actions. 

I think that nurturing environments can be created much more easily in primary schools, because everybody knows everybody else, and they have the same class teacher, who obviously will get to know those 30 children intimately and all their needs. It's a much bigger challenge in secondary schools, which are noisier, bigger, more challenging places, less likely that the people you sit next to are also living in exactly the same community. Mental health issues, particularly in adolescence, when there are such huge challenges on young people—. We all make mistakes. If we're not making mistakes when we're adolescents, we're not learning how we're going to navigate our way in the world.

What I would like to see from this debate is that we have trauma-informed approaches to all our pupils. We have the wonderful new curriculum, with its emphasis on well-being, and I want to see that being used by school leaders to revisit their responsibilities to develop enterprising and creative contributors, healthy, confident individuals, ambitious, capable learners and ethical, informed citizens, because we cannot have schools that simply exclude people because they can't be bothered to deal with their problems. That still exists in Wales, not in every school, but we need to ensure that all schools have responsibility towards the pupils who enter their school, particularly aged 11, and to ensure that they are with them until they are 16, and that the curriculum accommodates them, rather than the child having to be strait-laced into this particular curriculum. That is the way we will ensure that every child has the right to an education. That, it seems to me, is very important, as well as all the other issues around school transport that are also very important. But I just wanted to put that on the record. I'd like to challenge the Minister as to whether school leaders are expected never to exclude pupils on a permanent basis unless there were very, very special circumstances, which would have to be decided elsewhere, other than by the headteacher.

I call on the Minister for Education and Welsh Language, Jeremy Miles.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank the members of the Children, Young People and Education Committee for this important report. What's clear to me in considering the recommendations is the importance of considering attendance along with other influences and factors, as we've already heard, such as socioeconomic status, well-being and broader systemic issues.

Tackling the impact of poverty on educational attainment is at the heart of our national mission in getting high standards and ambitious targets for everyone. Only through taking action in all parts of the system can this agenda work, starting with preschool education and extending through to post-16 and lifelong education. I was pleased to appoint new attainment champions recently who will assist schools in tackling the impacts of poverty on attainment.

We know that the cost of transport is a barrier for some children attending schools. We've heard more about that today. The situation has been exacerbated for many as a result of the current cost-of-living crisis. The Welsh Government has published a White Paper, 'One network, one timetable, one ticket', which sets an ambitious target to transform the bus service in Wales. The proposals will be an opportunity to look anew at the way that bus services are provided across the country, including school transportation. In response to Jayne Bryant's point in her contribution, I think everyone is agreed on the scale of the issue and how important it is to take action, but we must also look at this in the broader context in considering the financial impact as well as looking at this in the context of wider bus reform.

It's important to understand how other pressures could impact on children's ability to attend schools. So, we have funded research to look at the reasons for school absences, and the research will also note the best ways of assisting children to attend school, particularly those children from low-income families across Wales.

The link between attendance and educational attainment is, of course, clear. Missing sustained periods of school presents a real risk to a child's attainment, and can also lead to them feeling more disengaged from their education. Monitoring educational outcomes and the links with attendance rates are crucial considerations as part of the development of the new data ecosystem. Simply put, the ecosystem will ensure that schools have the information they need to support learning and improve outcomes and to be able to link questions of attendance with questions of outcome.

We know that schools provide so much more than education. For some children, school is a haven, a place where they feel safe, where they feel seen and heard. School provides an opportunity for children to see positive values in action, a place where bonds and friendships are created that can last a lifetime, as well as a place to develop the social skills that we know are so important. Schools can't do this alone, of course. Success is dependent on partnership with parents, carers and the community. We know that greater engagement with families has been shown to have a positive impact on tackling the impact of poverty on attainment and on improving attendance. I was at a school last week talking to the head about how they engage with families around attendance, and he said to me that if you talk to families about 90 per cent attendance, for many that feels like a very high level of achievement, but when you describe the number of days lost that that involves, that paints a very much starker picture.

We want all schools in Wales to be community-focused schools, which means responding to the needs of their community, building strong partnerships with families and carers, and collaborating effectively with other services. Our family engagement officers play a critical role in our community-focused school model. Family engagement ensures that families feel listened to and valued. Their needs, and those of their children, are understood and catered for. They are encouraged to play an active role in their child's learning. Schools should encourage the involvement of all families in the work that they do, but should have a particular focus on supporting families from lower income households. I thank Jenny Rathbone for the visit to the school in her constituency today where we heard some very innovative approaches in relation to just that.

We'll continue to invest in family engagement officers this year by providing funding of over £6.5 million. We are also looking, as has been referred to in the debate, at what we can do nationally to support schools in engaging with parents and carers and around communications to address any concerns they still have, and emphasising the importance of children going to school. Some local authorities have already been running local campaigns, and we will consider what lessons we can learn to share nationally across Wales in the way that Jayne Bryant was asking for me to confirm.

Local authoritiy education welfare services have a vital role to play, not only in driving up attendance, but also in ensuring all children receive the education they deserve and have the right to expect. I'll be investing £2.5 million into these services this year to provide much-needed additional capacity. This will enable the service to provide earlier support before issues escalate, and also provide more intensive support to learners with high levels of absence.

We know there has been an increase in the numbers of families choosing to home educate since the pandemic. For some, this has been an active choice, but I acknowledge this is not likely to have been the case for all. No parent should be deregistering their child due to a lack of appropriate support. Understanding the decisions that lie behind parents choosing to home educate is therefore important. We are working with Data Cymru to improve the quality and level of data we currently capture in relation to deregistration and the key demographics of this cohort, including the reasons for deregistration.

As we've discussed already in the debate today, poor mental health has been linked to poor school attendance, with anxiety often described as a key factor. Our framework on embedding a whole-school approach to emotional and mental well-being highlights the need for schools to use the data sources available to them when considering the well-being needs of their community. We'll be considering how attendance data can be used to help inform how schools support the well-being of learners to prevent persistent absence. Ensuring that every young person has the opportunity to reach their potential is my priority, and working with partners to increase learner attendance is fundamental to this.

I call on Jayne Bryant to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. Thank you to all Members who've contributed to the debate today and for the Minister's response. I'd also like to put on record my grateful thanks to our excellent clerking team, our researchers and outreach team who've really supported us as a committee.

There really is clearly a shared ambition here to ensure that children and young people are able to attend school and engage in school activity as much as possible. The impact absence from school has on young people can't be underestimated. We've heard today as well not only does is effect educational attainment, it can also have an impact on mental health and well-being. We've heard from Members today, including Tom Giffard, who said about the pandemic and how that has impacted children and young people in many ways following school closures and changing work patterns for parents, and we've also heard how it's changed attitudes towards attendance at school.

Saying this, I do want to acknowledge that there will be some children and young people for whom sustaining regular school attendance is particularly challenging, and that might be for a myriad of reasons, some of which are out of their control, such as illness. In these instances we should be doing everything we can to help children and young people engage as fully as possible in a supportive manner. But as Laura Jones said earlier, we must make it as easy as possible for children and young people to attend school.

Members have touched on a number of topics. I think one of the key points was around the learner travel issues. I think Laura, Heledd and Vikki in particular touched on that. That was our recommendation 3—that we want to see that learner travel moving away from cost-driven decisions to a learner-first approach. We're very aware of the financial pressures that local authorities are under, which is why the committee recommended that the Welsh Government ensure local authorities have sufficient funding to deliver on this. But we do want to see the Welsh Government being radical in its approach on this issue, and to look for innovative solutions to this really long-standing, sticky issue.

Just for Members to note, outside of this inquiry, the committee has recently written to the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, asking for an update on the learner travel review. The Deputy Minister said that work is currently under way on planning the wider learner travel review, and that a timetable will be shared with the committee when it's available. Obviously, I'm sure, Minister, you will know that committee members and other Members in this Chamber are really keen for that to come to light, so we'll be eagerly awaiting that, and we will be monitoring that very closely.

Another issue was around data, and Vikki Howells mentioned, I think, Professor Ann John's quote, which is, 'What gets counted matters', and that is a really key point. I think Heledd and Vikki—well, Vikki shared her experience in a pastoral role in her previous work. That was really helpful to hear. And I think even the Minister's response, talking about some people feeling that 90 per cent of attendance was a good statistic. You know when you're at school, you hear '90 per cent', and some people think that is good, and you can understand. So, I think how we look at this data is really important, and behind that, as well, which I think Vikki had mentioned too.

We'd also heard around the importance of family engagement officers and the incredible work that they do. Many Members mentioned that, as well as the Minister touching on the importance of community-focused schools. And we do know that schools can't solve all the problems, which is what Professor Ann John told us, but it is about the school climate, and there are some things that we can do and affect.

I'd just like to touch on Jenny's point around the nurturing environments that schools can be. It is so important, and it is easier to attain in a primary school setting than a secondary school setting, but we have to work really hard to make sure that those nurturing environments are there for our young people.

Heledd mentioned how every day lost widens the attainment gap, and that is so important, and that's why we as a committee felt that this report was so important and this piece of work is so important, and we will be monitoring this as we go on.

So, I think, Deputy Llywydd, just to say that I believe we all have a role to play—not just schools, local authorities or the Welsh Government, but all of us here as elected politicians and active citizens in our communities—to reinforce those positive benefits of school attendance. It was really clear to us in our evidence that the carrot will be far more useful than the stick in terms of improving school attendance. And as a committee, we will continue to monitor progress on this important issue, and we look forward to seeing the outcome of the Welsh Government's review of attendance policy and guidance later this year, and I'd just like to say, once again, thank you to everybody who has contributed to this inquiry and for the debate today. Diolch.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? There is no objection, and therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.